Literature and Politics from a microcosm called Delaware. Here all the multifaceted players across the great capitalist contradiction are reduced to a few actors: a handful of banking and chemical oligarchs squatting in châteaux, a stable of artists downwind who either take inspiration for amnesia and roses or take a stand, challenging the living to repair a polluted world.

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Just out with new preface, 2nd Edition of Autoplant: A Poetic Monologue

"writes with authority and insight into the factory world. He brings his lively cast of characters to life, puts us there with them on the job. The book is funny, irreverent, and touching." Jim Daniels

Untime, by Steven Leech

"Through the parallel universes unveiled in UNTIME, the reader begins to clearly see the world they live in for the first time." -Lynnette Shelley, Brandywine Valley Weekly

The Mother Earth Inn

Neocons and neoliberals party on while Andean Indigenous evolve toward revolution in a country a lot like Ecuador

Pinhead #5

In the The Wedgehorn Manifesto, Steven Leech advocates preserving the legacy of Delaware literature, especially that which was produced by Wilmington authors. It exposes the flaws in today’s environment and suggests remedies for a cultural revival.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Who Pays the Piper

A regular theme here at Broken Turtle is that corporate funding for the arts comes with strings. That is not to say that craft and inspiration can’t break free and project a progressive vision from time to time, one that speaks with an honest heart about a shameful outrage against an American city. Such was the accomplishment of Ten Months: The Wilmington Voices Project, a three-person show portraying the memories and lasting legacy of the 1968 rebellion/riots in Wilmington, Delaware and the ten-month occupation by the National Guard following the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Conceived and Directed by Anne Marie Cammarato, the play will continue from March 31 through April 4 at the Delaware Theatre Company.

The work was not so much composed as harvested from memories and archives buried for forty years. The actors, Taïfa Harris, Erin Moon, and Ben Cherry, shift deftly among a host of characters: a white man who romanticizes Wilmington’s history from the Lenni Lenape to the DuPonts, a teenager rapping the words of Wilmington poet Devon Morrison, an aging African American man, wondering where his city went.

I do believe that such authenticity is a starting point for empowerment and change. But let me quote from a letter I published in today's News Journal to tell you what happened:

My enjoyment of Anne Marie Cammarato’s poignant exploration of painful memories in “10 Months: The Wilmington voices Project,” was dashed by the corporate propaganda inserted in the discussion following the show.

The Rodel Foundation-sponsored discourse led to a pitch for “Race to the Top,” which could rip up union contracts, fire principals and teachers wholesale at schools that serve the poor, and bribe cash-strapped school districts to surrender community control. The Rodel Foundatin, Eli Broad (ex-director of Notorious AIG) and their corporate partners have dominated education discussions in our state and marginalized less-powerful voices that might better advance community needs.

Diane Ravitch, assistant Secretary of Education for presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and formerly an advocate for such schemes, has now reversed herself in the face of their sobering results. Ravitch now concludes that high-stakes testing, “utopian” goals, “draconian” penalties, school closings, privatization and charter schools don’t work. She writes that “[t]he best predictor of low academic performance is poverty–not bad teachers.”

Today, it was announced that Delaware and Tennessee are two of the eventual 16 state winners of the “Race to the Top” competition and, along with it, $100 million in funds. Now, when government joins with communities to support their needs, that’s great. But when the government foists a corporate agenda on public education, that’s real tea party material. It remains to be seen, much in the same manner as the recent Health Care package just signed by President Obama, if the “Race to the Top” will more benefit the community or the corporations. There has certainly been very little real debate locally, other than a column I wrote, “So-called school reform serves corporate ends,” back in April 2008, and some recent remarks in Delaware Liberal blog.

Back to the arts, many folks say we should avoid overt messages. It’s amazing how corporate sponsors don’t seem to feel that way.

Thanks for the heads up about the take-no-prisoners site at Kilroy's Delaware. I am happy (and not the least bit embarrassed) to include a link. And thanks for keeping up with and pasting from my previous commentary on the Vision 2015 boondoggle.

All Delaware Authors

Broken Turtle Booklist is a catalogue of Delaware regional authors, local publishers, and literary communities operating in Delaware. The Booklist includes audio and video recordings of Delaware authors, as well as their major works. It provides easy links to Amazon, Paypal, or publishers for folks who want to buy. Each month, we will feature a selected work by a Delaware author.

Get Under the Wedgehorn free in PDF

To get your free copy of Steven Leech's The Wedgehorn Manifesto, write us at publisher@brokenturtlebooks.com. Also, Leech is now making a number of his other works in new editions available in PDF format.

What others have been saying about The Wedgehorn Manifesto:

Leech's writer's voice is from the heart, carrying lots of knowledge without pretension. He has a poets's feel for the way words work, and a jounalist's sense of the significant. Wedgehorn Manifesto marks, I hope, a turning point in the effort to preserve from destruciton the habitat in our collective memory of the many talented story tellers, poets, picture makers, and musicians who helped make life bearable for innumerable ordinary folk, and in fact made possible the fine cuture of the luckier few.

-Jonathan Bragdon, Wilmington born artist now living in Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Wedgehorn Manifesto is a call to action, a demand, an impassioned plea for the recognition, respect, and support of Delaware's artistic cultural past, present and future.

-Pat gibbs, columnist, The Wilmington SPECTATOR

Now Available!

Dreamstreets showcased progressive artists, photographers, and writers of the Delaware Valley from 1977 to 2006. A beautiful record of the most vital—if often marginalized—cultural productions of an era. Features two centuries of Delaware's literary heritage. Now includes audio and video files.